Obama won't rule out probe of Bush administration officials

WASHINGTON — Shifting ground in the face of a growing uproar, President Barack Obama opened the door Tuesday to possible criminal prosecution of senior Bush administration officials who provided the legal rationale for harsh interrogation techniques used against detainees in the war on terror.

And for the first time, Obama laid out a blueprint for using an independent commission, not traditional hearings on Capitol Hill, to examine the interrogation policies crafted by top officials in the Bush administration and carried out by CIA officers in secret prisons overseas.

While Obama again sought to reassure rank-and-file CIA employees that they would not face prosecution, the administration's changing positions have heightened anxiety at the agency and raised the prospect that Bush administration officials could remain under a cloud of scrutiny for months to come.

On Monday, Obama offered personal assurances there would be no prosecutions of officers who applied the rough techniques, which included striking prisoners in the face, confining them in coffin-size boxes and repeated waterboarding. On Sunday, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said in a TV interview that no prosecutions were envisioned for those who provided the legal justification for the harsh tactics.

Increasingly, human rights groups and many liberal members of Obama's base have been demanding investigation-and possible prosecution-of those involved in what these critics see as the illegal and immoral use of torture. The demands have only grown more intense since the release last week of memos that set out in graphic detail what tactics were permissible.

Obama said he would not rule out prosecuting the architects of such memorandums.

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said.